Charlie Rose with Michael Crichton

An hour-long conversation with Michael Crichton, one of the best-selling authors in American publishing. Crichton discusses his new book, "Next", about DNA, biotechnology and the ownership of disease. Crichton likens the human genome to a cloud interacting with the environment to explain how the same genes can yield different outcomes under different conditions. He also talks about global warming, where he take a number of controversial positions, including the stance that carbon dioxide is not the primary driver of increasing world temperatures.

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Dry hot air

Crichton appears in order to publicize his latest novel 'Next'. He explains his sense that much of the talk about the new genetics is hot - air. He does not believe 'designer-babies' are about to happen, but rather says that the problems involved with gene- manipulation are extemely complex and difficult. He himself is not interested in the wild- science fiction fantasy speculative stuff on genetics but the hard practical scientific and legal questions involved.
In the second part of the interview Rose shows what is an unusual for him a resistance to his interviewee. Crichton says that though there has been global warming of six to eight tenths of one - degree Celsius over the past hundred years, and though he believes Global Warming will continue he does not see this as disastrous. He also questions whether carbon emissions are the main culprit in all of this. There is a bit of tension in the discussion on the 'global warming issue' but it never gets really hostile. Rose finds a way back to the kind of good-natured spirit usually involved in his interviews.
I do not know the work of Crichton. As a personality he comes across as dry, and a bit supercilious. Enormously intelligent there is nonetheless something not very likeable about the 'know it all spirit' He did however tell one wonderful anecdote about Einstein. During the war the Germans gathered two hundred physicists together who signed a petition saying that Relativity is wrong. Einstein said in response 'It takes only one person to prove me wrong'. Of course that person could not be found.
Crichton seems to imply he is the Einstein of the Global- Warming issue. October 24, 2007

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